In Part 1 of this series, we talked about the seed of money and how easy it is to consume what was meant to be sown. Money is not the only seed we are guilty of devouring. Some of us are eating our purpose too.
Purpose is a seed, and like every seed, it must be sown.
The challenge is that purpose does not always come with stage lights or applause. Sometimes, if not many times, it comes as an instruction to stay when others are going or a leading to serve quietly when you would rather speak loudly. However, if you treat your purpose like it is a platform, you will keep showing it off instead of sowing it intentionally in service and with diligence.
Jesus said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain.” (John 12:24)
In other words, if it does not get buried, it cannot multiply. The temptation today is to display purpose, instead of planting it.
To display gifting instead of stewarding it.
Or to chase visibility instead of obeying God.
Many people want to feel purposeful without being grounded in purpose. So they run from assignment to assignment, conference to conference, camera to camera, trying to escape the silent seasons that God designed for depth and development of character.
But no sooner are they out there, under the spotlight than they begin to leak. They leak the very things God wanted to prune off of them in the place of surrender. Pride. Insecurity. Impatience. Self-will. These are things that cannot survive in the soil of true obedience and surrender but thrive when the seed is never buried.
The result is a life that is loud but not fruitful or a voice that is visible but not effective.
I have learned that the most powerful expressions of purpose are often hidden at first. They are built in obedience, in yielding, in saying “yes” when no one is clapping.
Many of the people we honor and celebrate today, those doing great exploits for God, have had seasons where He asked them to pull back, to serve in secret and to labour without recognition.
It was in those moments many of them realised that they were in a season of planting and burying their seed. They likely also discovered that God is the best multiplier of seed and the best rewarder of those who faithfully serve Him.
If you eat the seed of purpose by making it about you, your image, your timing, or your convenience, you rob yourself and others of the harvest it was meant to produce.
Purpose is not what you post. It is what you build. It is also not measured in likes, but rather in fruit.
Some of us are frustrated, not because we lack purpose, but because we refuse to plant it. We want instant significance when God is calling for slow, faithful sowing. He is asking, “Will you trust me with the silent years?”
If your purpose is not producing much fruit, maybe it has not died yet or maybe it has not been buried in surrender. Maybe it is still too visible, too noisy, too concerned with being seen.
Bury it in obedience, trust, and surrender to God. When the time comes, He will not need your marketing. He will raise your voice Himself. Psalm 113:7–8 says He raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the ash heap, that He may seat him with princes, with the princes of His people.
So, when was the last time you sowed your purpose intentionally instead of promoting it?
